Martinez Miffed By Rebuff

Defending Wimbledon Champ, Graf Gain Semis

July 05, 1995|By Robin Finn, New York Times News Service.

WIMBLEDON, England — Conchita Martinez, the defending Wimbledon champion who hasn't exactly been treated like royalty by the committee that doles out the coveted assignments for Centre Court, left herself just two steps short of a perfect defense of her one and only Grand Slam crown Tuesday.

Back on Centre Court after being banished to the grassy suburbs of this complex since she made her mandatory first-round reappearance on the main stage, the third-seeded Spaniard survived a strange interlude with eighth-seeded Gabriela Sabatini 7-5, 7-6 (7-5) in the quarterfinals.

Played out beneath a changeable sky and plagued by a flippant wind that made control of the match a delicate proposition for both, Martinez needed four match points before she cracked an unreturnable forehand volley into the side of the court where Sabatini wasn't.

"I'm going to say something to them about it," said Martinez, who rarely lets loose with a personal opinion in public, about her perceived snub from the tournament's scheduling committee.

"I'm sure some things are upsetting me, but the worst thing that can happen is to let the things upset me."

A year ago, Martinez rocketed to stardom in Spain after becoming the first woman from her country to seize this title, but she has yet to be given the red-carpet treatment at Wimbledon.

"The only thing I can tell you right now is that I'm incredibly happy to be in the semifinals," said Martinez, who will face her countrywoman, second-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario.

Along with Martinez, whose record this year is 42-5, Steffi Graf, a five-time Wimbledon champion, rushed into the semifinals with a 6-3, 6-0 demolition of the last American in contention on the women's side, 13th-seeded Mary Joe Fernandez.

Out to make reparations for last year's first-round loss, an indignity that logged her into the record books as the first defending Wimbledon champion to be deposed so prematurely, Graf is now 30-0 in 1995.

Her opponent in the semifinals is a most familiar one, fourth-seeded Jana Novotna, whose 6-2, 6-3 victory deprived Japan of the opportunity to see Kimiko Date, that nation's first woman ever to reach a Wimbledon quarterfinal, extend her run.

If she was happy to be back on Centre Court, Martinez didn't at first display it. She got off to an inauspicious start against Sabatini, and fell behind by 4-1 before mounting a slow comeback in which she trimmed her errors, some of them lazy, some from nerves, and began forcing Sabatini to play errorless tennis.

Martinez came alive when Sabatini served for the first set at 5-4. Shocked at the revival across the net, Sabatini double-faulted to 5-5, Martinez held and took her first lead of the match, and then broke Sabatini again to claim the set and the momentum.

But once Martinez took a 5-1 lead in the second set, it was Sabatini's turn to reinvent herself.

"I started really nervous and making a lot of mistakes, and then suddenly I found my way, and I was in total control of the match, and then she started coming in and putting pressure on me," said Martinez, who squandered a pair of match points as Sabatini served at 2-5.

With Sabatini hovering at the net, Martinez twice lost her serve as she tried to end the match, but in the ensuing tiebreaker, the defending champion drew on her composure--and it proved fresher than that of Sabatini, who hasn't won a Grand Slam singles title since the 1990 U.S. Open.

"I'm the defending champion. Nobody can take it away from me," said Martinez.

In the other quarterfinal, Sanchez Vicario beat Brenda Schultz-McCarthy of the Netherlands 6-4, 7-6 (7-4) to put the Spaniard into her first Wimbledon semifinal.